I don't think anyone will be interesting in this, but I believe saying it in a public forum will help me collect my thoughts.
Ok. My story and statement of intent: I had problems with sleep paralysis though part of my childhood and spontaneously projected for the first time when I was about ten. Since then I have made several attempts to learn to consciously project. Each time I gave up after some time. I think part of that the reason for that is my lack of honesty; I created a unreal persona while thinking about and talking about astral projections. Now that I am more mature and can recognize what I did wrong I want to make a new attempt to learn. I'm hoping that making this post and joining the community here will help me stick with my goals.
I have had several spontaneous projections and a few consciously induced ones, though my memory of most of them is a bit fuzzy. I've started Robert Bruce's "Mastering Astral Projection" again after failing to complete month one several time and plan to stick with it this time. Now, to state my beliefs. I am a scientifically minded atheist and am not quite ready to call out of body experiences more then hallucinations; however, I have had profound experiences and am trying hard to have an open mind. I'm very interesting in studies done on out-of-body experiences as long as they are up to the same standards of any other less esoteric study.
I am afraid that I might give up again and I hope to come here fairly often to keep myself on track; I'm glad to have found a community like this for that purpose.